


tell me you'll call just to hear my voice

by tarasmaclays



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Coming Out, Dialogue Light, F/F, Fluff, Pre-Slash, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:27:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25884328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tarasmaclays/pseuds/tarasmaclays
Summary: Robin doesn't give a shit about Nancy Wheeler. If you were to listen in on her conversations with her friends, you might get the opposite impression – but it’s true in her mind, and so it’s final.
Relationships: Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley/Nancy Wheeler
Comments: 4
Kudos: 86





	tell me you'll call just to hear my voice

**Author's Note:**

> Just some sweet ronance fluff! Find me on tumblr [@tarasmaclays](https://tarasmaclays.tumblr.com/)

Robin doesn't give a shit about Nancy Wheeler. If you were to listen in on her conversations with her friends, you might get the opposite impression – but it’s true in her mind, and so it’s final. She doesn’t care. Nancy’s proper, in a way Robin hates. She fits, in a way Robin doesn’t understand. She wears nice blouses and does her hair up and has hints of blush on her cheeks even if it’s eight on a Monday morning. Robin used to make fun of it – _who’s she trying to impress?_

It’s not so funny, anymore. Robin sits in the backseat of Steve’s car and makes eye contact with Nancy through the rear view mirror. She won’t look away first – she never could. Nancy has bangs, and the summer sun has given her freckles that track over her nose and cheeks. Robin blinks, scowling, and Nancy turns her eyes to the road ahead.

They pass a sign claiming Chicago is 60 miles away. Steve adjusts the radio knobs, turning their music down, and Robin knows she’s about to be in trouble. Steve’s not a subtle person – one of the many things she likes about him. He doesn’t have pretenses. He says what he means and fumbles his way to such blinding sincerity that it’s a miracle he’s not in more trouble than he is. She thinks back to when he told a customer at the VHS rental to watch that new movie with Judd Nelson, because he’s hot, and the boy had looked like he’d had half the mind to deck Steve square in the face.

He’s too sincere, and such a doofus. Robin loves him so much for it.

“So,” Steve starts. He keeps his gaze strategically on the neutral ground of the asphalt. “Chicago, huh.”

It’s not a question. Not even a statement, really – it’s barely anything. Maybe a nudge. Robin takes the bait. “Did you call the store back, about the part-time job?”

Steve blinks, like he forgot the store, the job, and even that he’s moving to Chicago in… well, now. He spares Robin a sheepish half-smile. “I’ll call when we get there,” he promises. “Not my fault I didn’t, though! There’s been like a bazillion things to do and it’s not like you reminded me or anything.”

“Aw, Stevie, you been busy?” Robin leans closer towards the front of the car. She can feel her hair tickling Nancy’s arm. “I think you were real busy, ditching our movie night last week to go to–”

Steve does a violent hushing movement, nearly spitting all over the wheel, and Robin cackles. Not a subtle bone in his body. And he thought she _wouldn’t_ know he’d sneaked to a house party to make out with some guy. She had ears all over Hawkins. Or, at least for queer gossip. 

Nancy gives Robin a quirked brow with a silent question in her eyes. Robin leaves it unanswered, and instead leans back against her seat. She puts her feet up, half hoping it’ll annoy Nancy.

It doesn’t. Instead, Nancy glances at her decorated sneakers and says, “I like your shoes.”

Robin blinks at her. “... Thanks?” She sounds hesitant even to herself, but really, what’s she supposed to say? Her sneakers are decked with rainbow patches and laces. Steve’s written “GIRLS” on the tip of the right one when drunk. 

Nancy likes them.

60 miles turns into 50, crawls into 40, and before long, they’re crossing the city line and navigating towards Steve and Robin’s new flat. The tense (or at the very least _not comfortable)_ silence in the car has turned into an anticipatory hush. 

Robin’s lived alone before. Steve’s been practically living alone the past however many years. They should be fine, and they will, but… but. But, but, but. There’s a gnawing bit of anxiety bothering Robin. Her brain supplies extremely helpful pictures, from gay-bashing to not making the rent to a leaking pipe. 

Sometimes, she can’t help but think if this was a good idea. But then Steve cracks a joke or gives her a smile and she returns to the original thought behind the idea: she gets to live with her best friend.

Nancy helps them move their shit to their empty apartment, not complaining even when Robin accidentally (really) drops a box of books on her foot. She doesn’t blink an eye at the rainbow flag Robin unfurls from her bag and drapes over the floor as a make-do picnic blanket while they wait for their take-away. 

Robin wishes she did comment on it. She pulled it out because she _wants_ Nancy to ask. It shouldn’t even matter (but it does), because what does she care what Nancy Wheeler thinks about dykes or any of it? She doesn’t, is the answer.

And yet.

She wants Nancy to ask, just _ask_ , or accuse, or hate her. Anything but indifference. If Nancy doesn’t care, then…

Robin thinks it over while they eat, cross-legged on the floor. She’s not like Nancy. Nancy’s not like her. Facts. These are facts, and Robin likes those, but she also likes puzzles, and so here it is: does Nancy know, does she care, and if she doesn’t, is it because she doesn’t care about Robin anyway, or because she’s not a bigot, or because – and this is the killer one, the one that scratches Robin’s heart – is she, after all, like her?

Robin spies at Nancy’s freckles again. She’s wearing a sensible, striped shirt and bell-bottoms. She’s got mascara on. Her curls stop just before her shoulders, slightly exposed. Robin follows the line of her shoulder to her collarbone, then her chin, before forcing her eyes away. 

She wants to ask.

Nancy spends the night. Too late to drive back to Hawkins, and of course they won’t send her to a hotel, what the hell Nance – and yeah, she can share with Robin, sure, the mattress on the floor is wide enough. Borrow my shirt, if you want. Borrow anything. Robin, still warring between not caring and suddenly caring a whole lot. 

Steve retires to his room with a sideways glance at Robin that either says nothing or everything. She can’t really tell in the dark. Nancy goes to the bathroom to change and brush her teeth, while Robin breaks a speed record in changing to her pajamas and shuffling into her sleeping bag.

She could feign sleep once Nancy comes back. Or, she could wait for Nancy to make a move. But Nancy doesn’t even know that there’s a game going on, so it has to be Robin. God dammit all.

Nancy slips in ten minutes later, wearing Robin’s baseball shirt and shorts. Robin’s heart does a traitorous skip-stutter-panic at the sight. She points at the blanket beside her. 

“You can, uh. Use that.”

“Oh.” Nancy frowns the slightest bit. “I can take the sleeping bag, too, it’s fine–”

“No, come on, you’re a guest. Get under the blanket.”

Nancy does. They lay silent, staring at the ceiling. Robin bites her tongue. She hopes Nancy falls asleep before her resolve breaks. 

But it’s Nancy who speaks first, after all.

“I’m really glad Steve met you,” she says quietly. “Especially when I was, you know.”

“Busy,” Robin supplies, when she means, hanging around with the Byers guy. 

“Yeah. Busy.” Nancy sighs. “He seems… happy. With you.”

Robin has to turn the words over for a bit before she gets it. “Wait. You don’t… you don’t think we’re together, right? Like… together, together?”

Nancy’s scoff says something Robin can’t decipher. “What are we, twelve?” She shrugs – Robin sees the movement from the corner of her eye. She’s too scared to look at Nancy directly. “I don’t know. I just know he likes you. And clearly, you tolerate him, I don’t know why else you’d move in with him – and I mean, I guess I kind of assumed–”

“No,” Robin manages. Laughter is bubbling somewhere in her chest. “No, trust me, we– it is _not_ like that.” The chuckle escapes her lips, and then she’s really laughing, eyes crinkled and all. “No, oh my god. No.”

Her amusement brings out Nancy’s curiosity. “Why not? What’s so funny?”

“You’re not dumb,” Robin says. 

“What does that have to do with anything?” But she’s blushing at the compliment, backhanded as it was. 

“You’re smart, you _have_ to know.”

The silence stretches on. Robin closes her eyes, and almost fools herself into believing she can fall asleep or Nancy will, or Nancy will realize she’s sleeping next to a lesbian and escape to Steve’s room, or…

“You like girls,” Nancy eventually says. She sounds confident in her deduction. Robin can picture her doing her homework, talking her way through equations, biting the end of her pencil. Legs kicked up, crossed at the ankles. A pink pencil and pillows for cushions. 

“Yeah.” She really, really does. “I do.”

“Okay,” Nancy says. Then, in a quieter voice, now less confident, she adds, "I might, too."

Robin didn’t have to ask, after all. There's more questions burning on her tongue now, _you think or you know_ , and, _since when_ , and, _does that include me_ , and a million other things, but she keeps them to herself for the time being. For now, all she does is reach out and offer her hand. Nancy takes it, twining their fingers. Their hands rest between them on the mattress.

“That’s okay,” Robin says. She doesn’t know if anyone’s told Nancy that. She doesn’t know anything, but she wants to. And isn't that a mind-fuck? Robin wants to know things about Nancy. Wants to get to know her. 

Nancy doesn’t say anything, but she squeezes Robin’s hand, gently, and the next day, before she leaves back, she pecks her lightly on the corner of her mouth – not quite there but not quite _not_ – and, well.

Maybe Robin does give a little bit of a shit about Nancy.


End file.
